A Familial Dynasty
Leger-Walker Sisters in the NBL, Logan Rogerson's out on loan & a Blackcaps T20 squad visualiser
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 28
Powers Of Imagination (Blackcaps T20 Squads)
Reading Menu
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Chanel Harris-Tavita and Developing Youngsters (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – August 10 (Football)
The Levels of Depth Pushing Blackcaps Test Cricket Forward (Cricket)
How Lydia Ko, Valerie Adams, Lisa Carrington and Rugby Sevens Wahine Took over Tokyo Olympics (Olympics)
Solid Start, Meh Finish for Black Sticks Women in Tokyo (Hockey)
Wildcard’s Notebook
She’s a solo mish today for logistical reasons but don’t even worry about it because we’re stacked with kiwi sporting goodness as always with a bit of basketball, football, and cricket on the cards.
Leger-Walker x Infinity
The NZ Women’s NBL has begun and there are Leger-Walkers everywhere. Harbour Breeze are the defending champs and they’re stacked with the likes of Ella Fotu, Tiarna Clark, and Ash Kelman-Poto (albeit missing 2020 MVP Brooke Blair)... but it’s the Waikato Wizards who are the funkiest with not one not two but three Leger-Walkers involved.
Krystal and Charlisse are both playing during their USA college offseason while younger sister Tannika Leger-Walker is also on the roster. She’s 14 years old, if you were wondering. Still gotta wait a week or two for her fifteenth birthday before she can play but both Krystal and Charlisse have said they reckon Tannika has the most potential of any of them. Oh yeah and mum Leanne Walker is the coach of the Waikato Wizards. It’s a familial dynasty (all dystasties are familial if we’re speaking literally but you know what I mean).
The Otago Gold Rush, Canterbury Wildcats, Capital Swish, and Auckland Dream round out the six teams in the competition, which will run for the next month with every team playing each other twice before a top four split into semi-finals and a grand final. Short and sharp but that does mean access to players from college and with every game televised within BBNZ’s partnership with Sky TV it should unfold with a level of prominence that hasn’t been seen before. Basketball NZ have done a great thing with that telly deal – exposure is essential if you’re trying to boost a league up. Out of sight equals out of mind. Make it as accessible as possible, including video highlights and a social media presence, and see what happens.
Game one saw the Wizards beat the Auckland Dream pretty comfortably 94-59. Tannika didn’t play but here’s what the older sisters got up to:
Charlisse: 31 PTS (11/20 FG, 2/5 3PT, 7/8 FT) | 8 REB | 5 AST | 9 STL | 0 TO | 2 BLK
Krystal: 17 PTS (6/17 FG, 2/5 3PT, 3/6 FT) | 7 REB | 2 AST | 2 STL | 3 TO | 1 BLK
Both fantastic performances but Charlisse in particular. 31 points in a breeze shooting at better than 50%. 8 rebounds, 5 assists (with ZERO turnovers) and a ridiculous 9 steals. Is she on quadruple double watch here? Charlisse LW is absolutely on course to be New Zealand’s second ever WNBA player so the opportunity to see her live and utterly dominating the local comp is a tantalising one. All the games are at Bruce Pullman Arena in South Auckland so get down there if you’re in town.
Subsequent Yarns From The NBL Takeover
One more fella on the bandwagon. Tohi Smith-Milner missed out on a contract last season after being released by Melbourne United but he had a fantastic kiwi season for the championship winning Wellington Saints and now here he is back on Aotearoa’s favourite Australian basketball team.
The Phoenix have three New Zealanders on the full roster for the upcoming season, TSM joining Reuben Te Rangi and Izayah Mauriohooho-Le’afa. Smith-Milner offers good size and improved shooting range, he’s played and lived in Victoria heaps across his career, and obviously he’s worked with SEM assistant coach Judd Flavell plenty too in various capacities. Flav’s doing the lord’s work in propping up that roster with kiwis. We’re now up to 19 New Zealanders contracted for NBL21 with 11 of them outside the Breakers organisation.
Now here’s Reuben Te Rangi spilling a craft beer during some sponsor promo thing...
Also speaking of the Breakers, no idea why they still haven’t announced the signings of Peyton Siva and Hugo Besson after they were widely reported a month ago but we stay patient. Might have something to do with Corey Webster’s future and wanting to pair that bad news with some good news... as if we don’t already know all of that weeks in advance but hey nobody’s out there claiming the Breakers have a cohesive logical media presence. Anyway, here’s a clue...
Flying Kiwis Transfer Season
Here we are, finally a bit of news on Logan Rogerson who since signing with HJK has only featured in friendlies and reserve team games. A shoulder injury has hampered his ability to settle into things at the top club in Finland but he’s gotten back fit again in the last few weeks, leading to a couple subs appearances for HJK Klubi 04 (the club’s reserve team affiliate)... alongside old mate Chris James who is a regular for Klubi 04. Rogerson even scored a goal in one of those games, a 2-1 loss away to PK-35.
But Klubi 04 play down a division so while he could get a nice run of games there it might not be the ideal preparation for cracking the HJK team, what with HJK being defending champs in Finland and into the final playoff round for the Europa League group stages and all that. Hence now that he’s healthy he’s been loaned out to a rival Veikkausliiga team: FC Haka. Fitting, really, for a lad from Aotearoa.
It’s a season-long loan linking up with the club currently placed ninth out of 12 teams. Three wins from 14 games means they’re likely to find their way into the bottom six relegation rounds... although their defence is pretty good so if Rogerson can come in and supply a few more goals (they’ve scored 11 in 14 games so far) then that fortune could change fast.
Rog mentions in that vid above that Haka was a club he had some talks with about signing for when he first went to Finland before settling on HJK so there’s an existing relationship there, same as there’s an existing relationship between the two clubs as last season goalie Jakob Tånnander was loaned from HJK to Haka and he’s since gone back to win the number one jersey for HJK. That’s the blueprint. That’s the plan.
Blackcaps T20 Selection Visualiser
Whipped up that table during some writer’s block yesterday and it made those three tiered squads make a lot more sense to me. The more backup/reserve squad that’s playing in Bangladesh (as well as the three ODIs vs Pakistan), then the half and half that’s playing the T20s vs Pakistan, before the top squad which links up for the Indian T20s and then the World T20.
You see all those names at once, 32 of them across three squads, and it all feels disjointed and weird. Then you take a look at who played across the 14 T20 internationals from the previous home summer and actually they’ve just picked all the most popular guys from then with the addition of an extra spinner. Which, yeah, that one is pretty odd considering there are already two world class frontline spinning options in the XI and guys like Glenn Phillips and Mark Chapman are increasingly useful rolling the arm over… suffice to say we expelled much airtime on that idea in our most recent podcast - links at the top.
Quite a bit did change across that summer of T20s. Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips played every game, locking on their places in the 1st XI. Colin De Grandhomme was injured and lost his spot, Ross Taylor got dropped. Tim Seifert bounced around the order and missed the final series with Devon Conway flawlessly taking over the gloveman duties… his position is the biggest unknown factor in trying to select a team from that World T20 group. But you can check the site (and the article links up above) for way more context on how those squads are looking.